Beguiling (Tempting #2) (8 page)

M
y phone had been dinging
at me for the last hour while I threw a ball in the backyard. I never checked it. Because every single text was probably Scarlet rubbing it the hell in that she didn’t remember.

She didn’t fucking
remember
. How was that even possible? I get it, I was pretty drunk too, but there was no way that any moment of that mind-blowing, earth-shattering, body-numbing sex would ever be erased from my mind. All the cliché phrases in the world didn’t seem like enough when I tried to think of ways to describe it.

Which pissed me off even more. Because that? That thing that I’d felt in her bed and when I touched her and tasted her? I’d never felt that before, which was scary as fuck by itself. But factor in that Scarlet had a blank slate, and I was pretty much vibrating with tension.  

Another chime from my phone, where it sat on the edge of the deck behind me, and I hurled the ball toward the throwing net that I used in the summer, throwing a little harder than necessary.

“Too much spiral,” a voice said from behind me, and I turned to find my best friend Adele slouched in a patio chair, shading her eyes from the sun. “Or was it not enough?”

I shook my head and walked toward her. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I had to come home today for some bullshit with my sister, and since you haven’t answered a single text from me, I figured I should make sure you’re alive.”

I started dragging another chair to face her when she stood up and motioned for me to follow her. “It’s too damn hot in the sun back here, let’s go in the front.”

Ugh. Great. Then I could face Scarlet’s house and think about her a little more. Fucking perfect. But Adele was already off the deck and walking around the side of the house.

“Pick up the pace, Madsen. I don’t have all day.” She snapped her fingers up by her face and smiled at me, but I knew that smile was bullshit. She meant it. So, of course, I followed her.

“Maybe the sun wouldn’t feel so hot if you wore something other than black.”

“I wear other colors.”

I glanced at her while we crossed the driveway and climbed the couple steps onto our front porch. “Uh-huh.”

“I have on pink underwear, thank you very much.” She pulled at the waist of her black jeans and pulled up a thin band of lace that was hot pink. I rolled my eyes when she snapped it back against her skin and pulled her shirt back down.

“Thanks for that,” I drawled and sat in one of the Adirondack chairs.

Adele laughed, leaning back into the other chair and stretching her arms above her head, her light blonde hair looking unfamiliar to me after seeing Scarlet’s thick red locks all week.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she said after we’d been quiet for a few minutes, me glaring across the street, and her watching me with a curious expression on her face.

“That’s because you haven’t.” I rubbed at a spot of dirt on the arm of my chair, not meeting her eyes right away. When I did, she was giving me a narrow-eyed look like she couldn’t figure out what language I was speaking. It made me fidget in my seat. “What?”

“Are you on your period?”

I rolled my eyes. “Nice, Adele. And you wonder why I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“See, right there,” she said and pointed a finger at me. “Nothing. No smile, no joke, no teasing. What’s wrong with you?”

I knew that my friendship with Adele wasn’t typical. We’d never slept together, which most people didn’t believe, and even though we’d had one awkward kiss that felt like sucking on a rock for how little we both enjoyed it, I’d never looked at her as someone I’d wanted. Again, probably something that most people didn’t believe, because Adele was fucking hot.

Like scary hot, in the way that you weren’t sure if she’d fuck you or kill you if you said the wrong thing to her. But you’d probably give it a shot either way because of how she looked.

She had sharp facial features and green eyes that could slice through you if she wanted them to. And moments like this, when she just straight up wasn’t taking my bullshit, immediately zeroing in on the fact that I wanted to punch something, made me remember why I needed her in my life.

Which is why it was pointless for me to lie to her. I dropped my head back onto the chair. “I think I’ve lost my mojo.”

When she cackled a little, I lifted my hand to flip her off and she just laughed harder.

“Leo, remind me when you
regained
your mojo? I’m assuming you mean your inability to attract normal, sane chicks?”

Instead of putting up a lame attempt to argue with her, because she was fucking right, I just nodded, lifting my head and squinting across the street at Scarlet’s car.

“There’s this girl,” I started and Adele leaned forward in her seat to listen. “I never thought it would happen with her. I mean, ever.”

“Why not?”

I worked my jaw back and forth, trying to decide how to answer. Adele knew Scarlet from high school too, and I really didn’t want her name coming up.

“She doesn’t like me very much.” An understatement, of course, but it made Adele smile all the same. “Thinks athletes are meatheads.”

“Ahh,
that
kind of girl.”

“Seriously, Adele, I’ve said meaner shit to her than any woman I know. And she dishes it right back. And the whole time, it felt like this fucked-up foreplay, at least in my mind.” I ran my hands down the tops of my thighs, shaking my head a little. “And last night …”

“Oooooh, finally,” Adele rubbed her hands together. I smiled, for what felt like the first time all day and Adele smiled back.

“We were both pretty drunk, and I was going to be good, I swear. But then she was begging me. And kissing me. And it’s not like my decision making skills were as sharp as possible.” For the first time since I started talking, Adele’s face tightened with concern. Not sure if it was for me, though. “So we did it. And this morning, she didn’t remember what happened.”

Adele nodded, opening her mouth before closing it again. She wet her lips and angled herself in the chair to pull one leg up. “Was she mad at you? Or scared?”

“No,” I said quickly. “More like, I don’t know, detached, I guess.”

“That’s good. So … how was it?”

I groaned. “You don’t want to hear this.”

“Yes, I do!” she practically yelled. “I’m a total sexual deviant.”

“Fine. It was fucking amazing, like the kind of sex you’d think is only in a really believable porno. Except better. Is that what you want to know?”

“Yup,” she said with an unrepentant smile. Then she narrowed her eyes again. “So who is it?”

“Uh-uh. I’m not telling you that.”

“Oh come on.” She batted her eyelids. “Pretty please?”

“No.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“I know.”

She watched me. I watched her. Finally, she held up her hands like she wanted to pop my head off my shoulders. “I can’t believe you’re not going to tell me!”

“How’s the Professor?”

Adele huffed, clearly not impressed with my change of subject. “Nathan is fine. Busy, but what the fuck ever. You must not want me to know because I
do
know her.”

Ahh. I saw it, in the way her cheeks got a little pink and her jaw set in a hard line.

“So, he’s finally fucking up, huh?” Adele had been living with Nathan Easton for a few months now, given that he’d switched jobs and was no longer her professor. Now he was at Harvard, because apparently he was smart and blah blah blah. I’d only met him once, but it was brief, and he obviously felt uncomfortable about the fact that Adele and I were so close. Or maybe he’d felt uncomfortable because he was like thirteen years older than us, and she and I had been on our way out to a bar, and he’d had to watch us walk out the door together.

“No,” she said after a second. Then she waved a hand in front of her face. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now.”

“Well maybe we should, Adele.” This time I meant it, and I sat forward, balancing my arms over my knees so she could see it in my face. “Is everything okay?”

The sigh she let out told me everything. So did the way her slim shoulders slumped. We were quiet again for a few minutes, but I knew she’d talk when she was ready.

With her fingers picking at the edge of her shirt, she finally opened her mouth. “He’s not fucking up. He’s just … busy.”

It sounded so lame to me, and she must have picked up on my silent judgment.

“I know how it sounds, Leo, but he has so much more pressure at Harvard. He’s adjusting. And so am I. It’ll just take some time for this to be normal.”

I waited for her to meet my eyes, and when she finally did, the hurt that she was trying to hide was all there.

“Adele …”

She whipped up a hand to stop me. “No, don’t say my name like that. My boyfriend is busy because he’s in a new job at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Don’t take that pitying tone with me, Madsen. If you really want to make me feel better, you’d tell me the name of your new fuck buddy.”

“She’s not my—”

Then the front door opened and my mom’s head popped out, a huge smile on her face when she saw Adele.

“Oh, Adele, sweetheart, how are you?”

“Good, Mrs. Madsen. Just making sure your son is still alive and kickin’.”

I rolled my eyes while they laughed.

“We certainly don’t see him much either while he’s home in the summer. But you know, at least someone is.” And she winked. And I really wanted Adele not to notice. But, of course, life was crueler than that.

“Oh yeah? Who’s that?”

My mom touched a hand to Adele’s shoulder. “Scarlet Jennings from across the street. You know, Pastor Jennings’ daughter.”

Adele’s mouth dropped open, and my mother was oblivious as to why, thank God.

“Did you need something, Mom?”

She tittered, then dropped a kiss onto the top of Adele’s head. “Okay, okay. I’ll let you two talk. Don’t be a stranger, sweetheart.”

“I won’t, Mrs. Madsen,” Adele replied, never taking her eyes off of mine, head shaking in disbelief. We both held that way until the door clicked shut and we heard the sounds of my mom’s heels click down the hallway.

“You’re
screwing
the preacher’s daughter?!” Adele screeched.

“Would you pipe down?” I hissed, glaring at her, and then looked across the street to make sure that Scarlet hadn’t chosen that exact moment to come outside.

But Adele was too busy laughing to pay attention to me. When she finally started settling down, she apologized. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it. It’s just too good. That chick was wound so tight in high school, I can’t believe you loosened her up enough that she even got off.”

I rubbed at my temples. “I am not having this discussion with you.”

“The preacher’s daughter. I can’t believe it.”

“Oh, like you can lecture me on taboo relationships, miss
I fucked my college professor
.”

She laughed again, wiping under her eye with one finger, the middle finger. “Oh, Leo, I’m not lecturing. I just can’t wait to see how this one plays out.”

Yeah. I couldn’t either.

A
dele’s visit
didn’t make me feel better. If anything, I was even more pissed off. Considering I had a chick best friend, you’d think she’d have been able to give me some more useful advice.

Instead, as she was about to slide back into the driver’s seat of her car, she’d shrugged her shoulder, looked back at Scarlet’s house, and started laughing all over again.

“Good luck, Leo. I think you’re going to need it if you want to conquer the amnesiac unicorn pussy.”

Come to think of it, talking to Adele didn’t feel much different than some of the guys on the team half the time. Throughout the day, I’d started composing half a dozen texts to Scarlet. I had a few favorites:

Basically, I felt more desperate every time I typed up a message I knew I’d never send. I was about to write a haiku about her tits when there was a hard knock on my bedroom door. I slipped the headphones off my ears and told whoever it was to come in.

When my brother’s head popped through the opened door, I sat up in surprise.

“What are you doing here?”

Grant laughed and rolled his eyes. “Nice to see you, too. Come on, we’re going to go grab a drink.”

“Really?” It probably sounded pathetic, to ask that of him. But he was older than me by enough years that it was odd for us to actually hang out. We’d never overlapped stages of life. By the time I hit high school, he was into college. When I started at Northern, he was working on his MBA. And now, he was firmly entrenched at our dad’s firm, while I was still studying for midterms and taking spring break.

“Really. I’ll meet you in the driveway in five.”

“Yeah, umm, sure. Sounds good, man.”

When I pulled a nicer shirt on, I took my time buttoning it. Knowing Grant, he’d make us go to some snobby-ass place for a beer. But when I met him by his car, he was wearing a Pats t-shirt and a Red Sox ball cap.

“Brew City?” he asked when I latched my seat belt.

“Yeah, sure,” I said quickly. That place was cool, but not somewhere I’d peg my brother as wanting to go. We were quiet as he drove us toward Shrewsbury Street, until I couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Not that I’m not cool with hanging out with you, Grant—”

“But what the hell am I doing?” he interrupted with an easy smile.

“—but what the hell are you doing?”

Our eyes met in the dark interior of his car, and when we both started laughing, the yellow cuts of light coming through the windshield showed me a smile and face that made me feel like I was looking in the mirror.

“Just want to see how my little brother is doing. That okay with you?”

A little humbled by the fact that I was pushing it so hard right away, I looked out of the passenger side window for a minute. “Yeah. Of course.”

He nodded in response, and neither of us said anything for the rest of the way. When we walked into Brew City, a table of women near the door turned in tandem to look at me and Grant. I wasn’t all that surprised, he was only about two inches shorter than I was, and had the same build, even if he wasn’t quite as big as me.

Grant grinned at them while we were seated at one of the open tables.

We both ordered the Goose Island IPA and clam chowder. One of the women at the first table caught my eye, her dark hair falling around her shoulder in big curls, and the way her eyes touched over my chest and biceps made it painfully clear that I wouldn’t have too much work to get something from her.

Grant turned his head, then with raised brows back in my direction. “Brunette?”

“Not really interested,” I mumbled into my beer.

The disbelief on Grant’s face was obvious, and when he laughed, it grated on my already piqued nerves.

“Is that so hard to believe? That I wouldn’t want to fuck every woman who looks at me? Sorry to disappoint the family’s opinion of me as the brainless manwhore, but I do have standards beyond a woman’s passing interest.”

My brother sank back in his chair, giving me a hard look. “I never said
any
of that shit. Don’t put the old man’s words in my mouth.”

Sufficiently chastened, I kept my eyes down at my bowl of soup, then pushed it away. I didn't think this was a good idea. Grant and I had one of those coasting relationships, like we were cousins who saw each other a couple times a year. You would talk about the surface shit, but not even blink at the fact that you didn’t really know what was going on in each other’s lives. And when something big happened, it was surprising, because you’d never talked about anything deeper than sports scores or weather or polite family inquisitions.

“What is it?”

I just shook my head. “Forget it, it’s nothing.”

“Oh bullshit. Just because I work with him doesn’t mean I’m a clone of dad. He’s hard on you? Big deal. He’s hard on me too. If he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Did you ever think that he was doing you a favor?”

Then I laughed. “I’m where I am today because I work my ass off to stay on that field, and it’s not because of dad. It’s in spite of him. He’s never pushed me a day in my life, that’s the problem.”

Grant stayed quiet, giving me a narrow-eyed look. Not one of judgement, just consideration. It lodged under my skin like a hot burr, because now he was going to try and figure me out.

“And you know what else? You and everyone else who thinks I’m just some dumb fucking jock can kiss my ass. I don’t need to prove shit to you.”

“What’s her name?” he asked quietly, not even remotely joking.

I slammed the rest of my beer, setting the glass down on the table so hard that I was shocked it didn’t crack. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

When I stood from my seat and pulled my wallet out, he held up his hands in concession. “Look, I know you,” he paused when I gave him a long look, “it may not seem like it, but I do know you. And you’re one of the most easy-going guys I know. So if you’re getting this defensive when it’s not even football season then it considerably narrows the field of why.”

Even though I was listening, I pulled my wallet out and fished some cash from inside of it. I was just about to toss it on the table when he grabbed my forearm.

“You want to go? Then go. I don’t give a flying fuck if you want to spend forty bucks to take a cab home, but if there’s something serious going on, you can talk to me about it. Whether it's about a girl or not. But women are pretty reasonable, Leo, if you're just honest with them and don’t play any fucking games, you’ll have a lot better luck.”

“Thanks for the advice, big brother. You’re always there when I need you the most.” I didn’t even attempt to keep the bite out of my voice when I tossed the twenty on the table.

It did in fact cost me about forty bucks to get back home, and after I’d tipped the driver, I was sure he was ready to be rid of me. My mood was foul, an inky thing hanging over me, and shock of the fucking century, Scarlet was yet again the cause of it.

How was it even possible that she didn’t feel what I had felt?

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't erase the way she’d tasted, the way she’d moved under me, the way she’d looked after that first explosion. The unpracticed way she did everything just fucking undid me, and it undid me in a way that I’d never experienced before.

And that much was obvious in what a prick I felt like. I wanted to lash out at everyone who encountered me, because what? Scarlet was drunk and didn’t remember boinking me?

I wasn’t this guy. I was the guy who everyone counted on to smile and make a joke and ease the tension. That was my role, for as long as I could remember it. As I stood in my driveway after the cab squealed down the street, I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s why it had been so good with Scarlet, because I wasn’t trying to play the Leo that people expected.

I had just been me.

My eyes snapped over to her house, and through the front windows, I could see a light on toward the back of the house. Not giving myself any time to second guess the decision, I jogged across the street.

Instead of going around to the back slider like I’d done before, I walked up the front porch and rang the doorbell. There was no answer, and no porch lights turning on in response, so I rapped my knuckle against the dark wood.

“Scarlet?” I called out, not too loudly, but enough that she’d know it was me if she was listening by the door. Behind the three or four inches of wood separating us, there was a muffled sound. I knocked again. “Come on, please? Are you going to make me beg for all the neighbors to see?”

It was impossible not to smile when
that
immediately made the deadbolt turn with a fast click. By the time I walked through the opened door, Scarlet was already marching back toward the kitchen, tight little ass twitching underneath her gray yoga pants with the fast movements of her legs. Almost immediately, I felt my blood pressure go down, which was mildly concerning. If Scarlet Jennings was my idea of stress relief, then I might need a fucking shrink to make sure that I wasn't a masochist.

The light I’d seen through the front window came from above the kitchen table. Scarlet had piles of papers and binders strewn across it. When I picked one up, there was a diagram on it that looked roughly like intestines, so I dropped it just as quickly.

“What are you doing here, Leo?” she asked, pouring herself a glass of water and definitely not meeting my eyes.

Well, fuck. I hadn’t thought this part out. And I couldn’t very well say,
oh, I’m here because it seriously threatens my manhood that you don’t seem to remember the thorough fucking I gave you. That you don't remember how every inch of you was shaking from the force of your orgasm.

“Just wanted to make sure that you’re okay staying here by yourself.” It came out so smoothly that I almost believed it. The way she looked up at me told that she actually did too. The soft look in her eyes was … I don’t know, like she was touched by that. But she flicked her gaze away from me again, taking a drink from her glass with jerky movements.

While she did that, I walked closer to her with slow, deliberate steps. From the way her shirt fluttered against her stomach, I could tell her breathing had picked up.

She was
nervous
. But not in the scared way. Not even close. I knew Scarlet well enough that if she was scared of me, she’d never have let me in the door. The skin below her collarbone was even a little flushed. I wanted to touch it, see how it tasted.

By the time I was standing next to her, she’d finished her water. Only a sliver of air separated us, and it pulsed with the same thick, honeyed tension from the other night.

“Because I hate the idea that you might be here in this big house, hating the fact that you’re alone. Especially when I could do something to make you feel better,” I pushed the hair away from her face and leaned in, fully prepared that she’d stop me since I was laying it on a bit thicker than I’d anticipated.

Only she didn’t. Her breath hitched, making her luscious tits press against the cotton of her shirt.  

My pointer finger followed the length of her hair until all of it was behind her slender shoulder. And like I willed it, she turned toward me, just slightly, dragging her eyes up my torso and chest, stopping somewhere around my throat, at the place where my pulse was probably throbbing the same way that my now rock-hard dick was.

What a fucking idiot I was, thinking I was coming over here to prove to myself that she’d felt something. All I really wanted to do was feel it again too.

My hands lifted, cupping the sides of her face, something I hadn’t really done our first night together. Before I even had the time to see what her eyes looked like with my fingers framing her face, she let them flutter close.

I fucking
knew it
.

If she felt nothing,
knew
nothing from our night, those brown eyes would have stayed the fuck open. Maybe I really was a masochist, because I wanted to see how far I could push this, so I dipped down and licked a line along her plump bottom lip.

When she didn’t immediately knee me in the balls, I sank in again, fitting my lips in between hers and taking a long pull. I moaned at the taste, something that wasn’t a conscious decision. But she just tasted so fucking good.

Scarlet may not have moaned back, but when my tongue snaked in to lick along hers, she did more than push hers back, she gripped the front of my shirt with two tight fists and moved up on her tiptoes.

One of my hands moved around her face to grip into her hair, the other following the line of her back until I could palm one ass cheek. I angled my head, diving in again, imagining all the ways I could fuck her in this kitchen.

First would be to bend her over the table and grip her hips from behind.

Second would be to flip her around, lay her back and wrap her legs around my waist while I stood at the edge of the table, fucking her so hard that I’d see her tits bounce with every thrust.

My mind was already there, grinding my hips against hers to find some relief that I barely registered that she’d shoved my shoulders back. Once I did, I lifted my hands in the air and stepped back.

Scarlet held a hand in front of her mouth, eyes big and face pale. I clenched my teeth and turned around. If I had to stare at her, I’d probably do something fucking stupid again. My hands curled into fists, and I propped them on the cold surface of the granite, hanging my head down so I could breathe through the fact that she was probably about to kick my ass out.

I opened my eyes and looked down, blinking a few times in confusion at what I saw. When I picked up the piece of notebook paper and started to turn, Scarlet gasped.